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14-07-2024
LAGOS: At least 22 people, including students, have been confirmed dead after a two-storey school building collapsed in central Nigeria, according to the authorities, sending rescuers on a frantic search for more than 100 people trapped in the rubble.
The Saint Academy building in Plateau state’s Busa Buji community collapsed on Friday shortly after students, many of whom were 15 or younger, arrived for classes, the authorities said on Saturday.
A total of 154 students were initially trapped in the rubble, but police spokesman Alfred Alabo later said 132 of them had been rescued and were being treated for injuries in various hospitals.
The Associated Press news agency quoted Alabo as saying that 22 students were confirmed dead. An earlier report by Nigerian media had said at least 12 people were killed. Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said in a Facebook post that 30 people remain in hospital. The rescue operation had ended and the site cleared, it said.
Rescue workers had tried to reach the victims using heavy machinery, and images from the scene showed crowds gathering around a caved-in concrete building and piles of rubble.
Dozens of villagers gathered near the school, some weeping and others offering to help, as excavators combed through the debris from the part of the building that had caved in.
One woman was seen wailing and attempting to go closer to the rubble as others held her back. NEMA said rescue and health workers as well as security forces had been deployed at the scene immediately after the collapse, launching a search for the trapped students.
“To ensure prompt medical attention, the government has instructed hospitals to prioritize treatment without documentation or payment,” Plateau state’s commissioner for information, Musa Ashoms, said in a statement.
The state government of Plateau blamed the tragedy on the school’s “weak structure and location near a riverbank”. It urged schools facing similar issues to shut down.
Building collapses are becoming common in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, with more than a dozen such incidents recorded in the last two years.
Authorities often blame such disasters on a failure to enforce building safety regulations, the use of substandard construction materials and poor maintenance.
In 2021, at least 45 people were killed when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in the upscale Ikoyi district in Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos.
In 2022, at least 10 people were killed when a three-storey building collapsed in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos.
Since 2005, at least 152 buildings have collapsed in Lagos, according to a South African university researcher investigating construction disasters.
Resident Chika Obioha said he had seen a number of dead bodies and that dozens of people had been rescued.
“Everyone is helping out to see if we can rescue more people,” he said.
“Devastated by the tragic loss of young lives at Saint Academy,” Unicef Nigeria representative Cristian Munduate wrote on X. “Children full of dreams were writing exams when the school building collapsed. Deepest condolences to families affected.” There have been several major building collapses in Nigeria in recent years, with observers blaming a mix of bad workmanship, poor quality materials and corruption.
In 2021, at least 45 people were killed when a high-rise building under construction collapsed in a wealthy Lagos neighborhood. (Int’l News Desk)
